


On by your thread

by Stonestrewn



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-08 15:47:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11649732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stonestrewn/pseuds/Stonestrewn
Summary: “I see how it is,” Suvi says. “You worry about me on a secure research station, but it’s all right for you to run off and make dangerous deals with outlaws.”She can never keep pretend angry with Vetra for more than a few seconds. Vetra just has to brush a thumb over her cheek and chuckle, low and throaty like she does, and all Suvi can do is smile.“They’re nice outlaws,” Vetra says. “Relatively.”





	On by your thread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MundaneChampagne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MundaneChampagne/gifts).



> Hi, recipient! I was thrilled about your prompts when I got the assignment, and I hope you'll enjoy this even a fraction of how much I enjoyed writing!
> 
> Proper thanks to my betas go here once I'm no longer anonymous.

“I still don’t know about this.”

Vetra leans against the doorframe, posture relaxed but attentive, her arms crossed over her chest. 

“I’ll be fine,” Suvi says. She finishes folding her underwear and starts on the socks still in a heap on her bed, putting them into her backpack pair by pair. “It’s all very safe and controlled.”

“Safe and controlled? On Kadara? I hope we can have that one day, but...” Vetra shakes her head. “Not yet.”

“I never knew you were such a worrywart.” 

“Yeah,” Vetra says. “I worry.” She closes the distance between them in two lithe steps, puts her hands on Suvi’s waist from behind. Her fingers, long and clawed, very nearly touch all the way around, but they’re light and gentle. “That’s what you do when your girlfriend decides to spend two weeks alone in an alien wilderness.” 

“The research station is only a few clicks away from our settlement.”

“I know.”

“And the wildlife keeps mostly away from structures.”

“I know.”

“ _And_ the Initiative patrols the area regularly. Nearly every day now, I’m told.”

“I know that, too.”

“What’s the problem, then? It couldn’t be…” Suvi mock gasps, turns around to face Vetra. “You don’t trust me to take care of myself? Your own girlfriend?”

Vetra’s mandibles flange in amusement. “Oh, no. Perish the thought.”

“Good,” Suvi says. She stands on her toes to put her arms around Vetra’s neck, pressing their bodies together. Vetra is out of her armor, wearing just the thermo regulated suit she wears underneath, and the padding isn’t enough to conceal all her interesting angles and nooks. Suvi didn’t understand how enticing cartilage spikes could be before she started dating a turian.

“I can be tough, you know,” she continues, and Vetra smiles.

“Of course. My big, strong human.” She punctuates the words by giving Suvi’s bottom a little pinch, and Suvi laugh-yelps, squeezes even closer while Vetra envelops her in in a true embrace.

“And you’re my precious little turian flower.”

“Seriously? That’s where we’re at?”

“Yes,” Suvi says. “Pucker up, buttercup.”

“What does that even-” Vetra laughs, until Suvi interrupts her with a kiss.

Turians don’t have lips, per se, but the tissue around their mouths is remarkably flexible and sensitive, containing nearly as many nerve endings as their genitals. Turian sex involves a lot of nuzzling. Nuzzling, and nipping, soft and then sharp in a heady mixture. Their tongues are long enough to be very exciting, and just thinking about the times she’s had Vetra’s inside her is enough to make Suvi’s clit throb. 

Suddenly the idea of two weeks with nothing but mineral samples for company seems much less appealing.

Vetra seems to be thinking along similar lines. “I know you have to leave,” she murmurs in Suvi’s ear. “But what if you didn’t?”

“It’s a wonderful opportunity to push forward with our research,” Suvi sighs, raking her nails along the soft skin under Vetra’s chin, enjoying the deep, pleasurable shiver that runs through her girlfriend’s body. “Being on the Tempest is great, but there’s never enough time to dig deeper into things. We need to understand what Heleus is truly made of if we’re to live here sustainably and, oh-!”

Vetra has started licking her way down the side of her neck. Suvi moans. 

“I’m going to miss my shuttle but I don’t want to tell you to stop. Help me.”

“Nope.” Vetra lifts her head to smile at her. “You’re on your own.”

She’s beautiful. The elegant curves of her mandibles, her golden eyes, the smooth, matte surface of her carapace and the way it tapers into fine-pointed petals over her forehead - Suvi could look at her for hours on end and never be satisfied. 

It’s with true remorse that Suvi untangles herself from their embrace and says: “I have to go.”

“Yeah,” Vetra says, kindly. “Just... Be safe.”

“The Nexus science team has had several stays at the station, already,” Suvi says as she goes back to packing. “Besides, I know a little about defending myself, now.”

“Hm.”

Suvi throws her a glance over her shoulder. “What’s with that tone? You’ve taught me yourself.”

“That’s how I know not to be reassured.”

“Hey.” Suvi lightly swats her arm, tries not to give in to laughter. “I’m hitting the targets now and everything. At least three times out of ten.”

“And I’m very proud,” Vetra says. “And very worried.” She’s been smiling this whole time, her mandibles relaxed, but now they tighten as her face grows serious. “Comms don’t always work when you get up into the mountains.”

“Oh. Right. Because of the nyxerium deposits in some of those peaks. If there’s enough it can block or disturb transmissions, sometimes.”

“Nyxerium…?”

Suvi blinks. She can feel her face heat up. “Shoot. I meant to tell you as a surprise once the name is authorized in all databases.”

“You named a rock after me.” Vetra laughs. “An especially impractical rock.”

“Well, it looks pretty,” Suvi defends herself. “It has this deep copper red color. You can find entire mountainsides of nyxerium down on Kadara, it's so gorgeous in the light...“

“Impractical and pretty. Yeah, sounds like me.”

“Don’t forget explosive when exposed to weapons grade plasma.”

“Perfect.” Vetra leans in and gives Suvi a peck on the cheek. “Don’t worry, I know the name is a compliment.Thank you.”

“Oh." Suvi accepts the kiss with the thrilled satisfaction she'll likely always feel whenever Vetra displays her affection. "It was mostly for my own sake, really. I want to think of you when I’m working.”

“Be reminded of me every time your comm dies.”

“Don’t you turn this around on me again.”

Vetra chuckles. “Sorry. Looking after people is a bad habit.”

Suvi puts her last pair of gloves into the backpack and zips it closed. There are two more trunks containing samples and equipment already waiting for her by the airlock. Everything she needs for two weeks of uninterrupted, focused work, just her and the geology of Kadara. 

She’s going, she feels no hesitation about that. But if Vetra really worries, Suvi wants to take it seriously.

“Actually,” she says, “GiI and I have been looking for ways to solve the problem. It’s a little experimental, still…” She reaches into her personal locker and pulls out a small communications unit. “Maybe this is a good time to test it out in the field.”

“Does it work?” Vetra asks, accepting the small receiver and earpiece. Normally, a comm add would be installed as an omnitool app, so Suvi can understand her apprehension. 

“In a controlled environment, it does. You never know for sure until you've tried something the way it's meant to be used in practice, but it should be an improvement to the regular comm.” She helps Vetra attach the receiver to her visor. Without it she’s almost blind, so she’s guaranteed to always have it with her. “There. Does that make you feel any better?”

“Sure,” Vetra says. She adjusts the earpiece and gives Suvi a small, flanged smile. “But you know I’ll still worry, right?”

“You can call me every day, if you like. It will be good for me to be reminded to take breaks.”

“Okay. Might not be _every_ day. I’m probably going on a procurement run.”

Suvi puts her hands on her hips. “I see how it is,” she says. “You worry about me on a secure research station, but it’s perfectly fine for you to run off and make dangerous deals with outlaws.”

She can never keep pretend angry with Vetra for more than a few seconds. Vetra just has to brush a thumb over her cheek and chuckle, low and throaty like she does, and all Suvi can do is smile.

“They’re nice outlaws,” Vetra says. “Relatively.”

“You’ve dealt with them before?”

“It’s all routine. Nexus crops for salvaged tech. Same run I’ve made a hundred times by now.”

“Just be safe,” Suvi says. 

Vetra nods. She kisses Suvi again, long and slow. After they break the kiss she holds Suvi’s hands in hers, and her eyes are heavy-lidded and sweetly fond.

“I love you.” 

Suvi looks up at her, lets the knowledge that this wondrous woman loves her fill her up and amaze her like it always does. 

“I love you, too.”

\--

For a long time, Suvi thought she and Vetra wouldn’t happen outside of her wishful mind. 

There had been signals, there’d been talking, and there’d been flirting, or so she thought. She was right in the end, but for months Suvi wondered. She would try to flirt - clumsily, of course, she is what she is and fortunately some women find it charming - and Vetra would laugh, or smile, or stand a little closer, and nothing would come of it. Suvi can handle rejection, whether it’s in words or behavior, and she knows how to not let personal disappointments poison professional relationships. It was fine. She had decided to let it go. 

And then Vetra had asked for her company going to the Aya markets on the pretense of getting a second opinion on some… Oh, she barely remembers now, it might have been seedlings, for hydroponics on the Nexus. They had wandered through the airy streets, Suvi sampling the local food and telling Vetra what it tasted like, talking about everything but what they were supposedly there for. Eventually, they ended up on an open balcony, high above the bustle below as the market closed for the day. 

The sun had been setting. Vetra had leaned against the railing, the light tinting her carapace in oranges and pinks. She was, all of a sudden, starkly pensive. 

She said: “Suvi. Is this real?”

“After everything we’ve been through it’s hard to believe in this place,” Suvi replied, even though she knew what Vetra meant, even though her heart had started pounding painfully hard, because it wasn’t a sure thing, the deniability was plausible, and she wanted it too much. She wanted it so much it scared her. She didn’t want to scare Vetra, too. 

“Not that.” Vetra wasn’t looking at her. Her mandibles were drawn in taut. “I meant this. Between us. It’s like you care-”

“I do!” Suvi had said, too loud and too fast. She was gripping the railing like it was the only thing keeping her from drifting out into space. She bit her tongue.

Vetra had looked at her, mandibles quivering. 

“I don’t mind if it’s ‘no’. I just want to be sure.”

And Suvi had said: "Oh," and blushed, trying to find a way to say everything that was in her heart without it spilling out in a mess of feelings, seconds slipping by while her useless tongue tried to pick the right words.

"I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have put you on the spot,” Vetra said. She started putting distance between them and Suvi reached, or lunged, but she wants to remember it as though she reached for Vetra’s arm, nothing as desperate as she felt. She caught Vetra’s eye, captured the moment before it could escape. 

It’s the bravest thing she’s ever done. 

“I do. I care about you. You mean the world to me, Vetra.”

Vetra looked surprised, honestly and truly. Surprised and relieved. “I didn’t want to assume.”

“Neither did I!” Suvi had laughed, then. “I thought you weren’t interested.”

“Of course I was. Look at you. You’re smart, you’re beautiful… And that voice…”

“Look at _you_! You’re a dreamboat!” 

Vetra had laughed,too. Suvi was still holding on to her arm. “A dreamboat, huh?”

“I kept telling myself you were out of my league. I never thought…” Suvi let go of Vetra’s arm, took her hand instead, squeezed her fingers. They were solid, corporeal. It was a wonder. “This is real. Right?”

“It’s real for me.” 

They were standing very close. Suvi swallowed. “I want to kiss you so, so badly.”

“Let’s go for it,” Vetra had said, and her voice had been low and husky and ever so tender. 

Suvi reached up, Vetra bent down, and it was good, it was wonderful. The air was warm. The wind smelled sweetly of flowers and fruit. The paradise of Aya, the hope of a future filled with peace and happiness in this new world lay before them, and Suvi had smiled into the kiss, leaned into Vetra’s fingers combing through her hair and she had been completely, perfectly happy. 

It’s almost a year since, now. Their anniversary should be soon. She’ll have to think of some way to celebrate, but knowing Vetra she’s probably beat her to it. 

The research station is small, a single prefab module perched on a steep hillside. Nestled in among a cluster of rock formations, it’s virtually invisible from the ground. Climbing the mountain would take a vehicle of Nomad caliber at least, and aside from the spot currently occupied by her own emergency shuttle, there’s nowhere to land. The station has nothing of value besides the equipment, there are no useful raw materials typically sought after in the area nearby. The shuttle has an IES stealth field - not so powerful it can be active for more than a few minutes before needing to release pent up radiation, but able to conceal her just long enough to get a leg up on possible pursuers. If someone wanted to hurt her here, for whatever reason, they’d have to be exceptionally motivated. 

In light of all that it may be silly that she brought her practice gun, the one she’s been using with Vetra at the range. Being around so many fighters has made Suvi want to learn at least rudimentary self defence. Vetra has been an obliging teacher; Suvi has been a terrible student. 

Guns are loud, is the problem. The noise startles her and then she misses the shot. Even after switching to a less noisy plasma gun, it’s hard not to flinch.

Still, Suvi puts the gun by the side of the cot where she sleeps. If nothing else, it makes her feel like she has options, space to act, were something to happen. 

Not that she worries much about it. Work sweeps her up and whisks her away as soon as she arrives. This spot was chosen for its particular mineral composition, where elements have combined in ways that seem to contradict what they’ve found so far. Suvi spends the first day on her knees outside, scanning and collecting samples, until her legs ache and the back of her neck is burned bright red.

“Did you put on sunscreen?” is the first thing Vetra says to her, after “Hey, babe” and “How’s the science?” when they speak over the comm in the evening.

“I’m so stupid, I forgot,” Suvi says. 

“Don’t call yourself that,” Vetra says. She called on the comms unit Suvi gave her, their own secret little channel, and her voice is warm through the earpiece. “I know how you get. Laser focus right off the shuttle, am I right?” 

Vetra laughs, and Suvi smiles. 

“Something like that,” she admits. “I’ll have to pace myself, or I won’t last a full two weeks.”

“Still don’t get how any of you get by without a carapace.”

“I wish I had one right now.” Suvi gingerly touches her burned skin. It smarts, quite badly. “Tomorrow, I’ll have to wear a hat.”

“You’ll look cute.”

“Aw, thank you.”

“Send me a picture?”

“Only if I actually do look cute.”

“So it’s a done deal.”

Suvi spins around in her swivel chair. No one but Vetra can make her feel like a silly teenager again, her insides all jittery.

“Oh, you,” she says. “Flatterer.”

“I call them as I see them,” Vetra says. She sounds relaxed. Suvi can picture her, sitting by her desk with a bowl of cereal, or reclining on Liam’s couch. Maybe she’s just out of the shower, lotioning the places where the carapace doesn’t cover her soft, brown skin, running her hands slowly down her long, slender neck, the lower parts of her belly, the insides of her thighs…

“Have to go, though. I’m on Aya right now, headed for a meeting,” Vetra continues. 

There goes that fantasy. 

“Is it for… Well. You know?”

Vetra lowers her voice a little. “If you mean am I making arrangements to take a little trip on my own when the Tempest travels to Kadara in a few days? Then, yeah. Sure am.”

“Good luck,” Suvi says. 

“And, I know it will be hard, but please try to enjoy the Nexus without me.”

She can hear Vetra’s smile in her voice. 

“I’ll eat something weird in your honor.”

\--

Vetra calls every night. No long chats, but little updates, loving words. Suvi spends the rest of her time engrossed in her work, setting alarms for meals and bedtime, or else she’ll forget. She’s missed this. Being part of the Tempest crew is an adventure which has allowed her to see and experience unimaginable things, but this kind of work is her core, and she settles quickly into a routine that’s predictable, comfortable, and incredibly productive.

On the seventh day, Vetra doesn’t call.

Perhaps it makes her a bad girlfriend, but at first Suvi doesn’t worry about it. It’s not out of character. On the second night with no call she tries making the call instead, but doesn’t get alarmed when there’s no response. Sometimes Vetra turns her comm and omnitool off when she’s doing business, to avoid being tracked. It’s rare, but it happens. Vetra is daring but not one to take risks, and she safeguards whenever she can. 

On the third night it bothers her. 

She tries to think about something else. Suvi goes from one task to the next, pretending she isn’t waiting for evening, that she isn’t having trouble keeping her mind focused on her data, constantly checking the time when normally she’s not aware of it passing at all. When Vetra’s regular calling hour comes and goes, comm silent, she feels it like a string of tension through her spine.

It’s silly, of course, she tells herself. Vetra’s fine. She’s the most competent woman Suvi’s ever met, she knows what she’s doing in every situation. Vetra is always, always fine.

She’s decided to go to bed for the night since her focus isn’t with her, when the comm dings. 

“Hi there,” Suvi says, relief washing over her. “Would you believe you almost had me-”

“Suvi.”

Vetra’s voice is strained. The reception is bad, the sound tinny and laced with static, but even through the interference Suvi can hear that Vetra sounds scared.

“Suvi. The deal went bad. I’m cornered in-” The connection cuts off for a moment, comes back clearer. “...blocking the signal. I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“What’s going on?” Suvi has stood up. She sits down. She stands back up, starts to pace. Her legs are shaking, her hands are, too. Is this real?

“It went bad, it doesn’t- Listen. Tell Sid-” Vetra’s voice breaks. She takes a deep, shuddery breath, and when she speaks again, it’s steady. “Tell Sid I’m sorry. Tell her I love her. She’s smart and strong. She’ll make it out here, I know it. I’m leaving her everything I have, Suvi, make sure she gets it.”

“Vetra, please-”

“Suvi. I love you. Be happy, all right? For me.”

“Where are you?” Suvi has opened her omnitool display, connected the secondary comm to it. If she can trace the call, then maybe… “Where are you?!”

“Don’t,” is all Vetra says. “I’m so sorry.”

She hangs up. 

Nothing but static in the earpiece. It eats through Suvi’s eardrums, chews into her brain, nibbles at her sanity. The unfathomable lack of Vetra’s voice. Lack as a threat, a promise of devastation. 

She needs to think. Not panic. Not vomit or cry or faint or let the scream in her throat out where it can delay and distract her. There’s a solution here, there must be. 

The signal was too weak for a direct trace, but before Vetra hung up the tracking software had zoned in on a general area. If it’s to be trusted - and it’s the only lead she has, so she doesn’t have much choice but to - then Vetra isn’t too far away, in a valley only a few mountaintops to the east. It’s a start. 

Suvi pulls up the geological survey map of the area. Vetra mentioned a blocked comm. It could be bandits doing it on purpose, or it could be nyxerium. The area is rich with it, but the largest concentration is in a system of caves running through the base of one of the lower peaks. And Vetra said she was cornered. She could be trapped in that cave. 

Heart in her throat, she comms the Tempest. 

Kallo picks up. “Finally! I was starting to think you’d forgotten all about your best friend.”

“Vetra’s in danger,” Suvi all but shouts. 

“What?” Kallo says, but thank God in all their glory for his quick reaction time, physical as well as mental, he immediately springs into action. “Where is she?”

“I’m sending you an approximate coordinate.”

Kallo clicks his teeth. “I’ve sent the pathfinder an emergency alert, but we’re still in Kadara port. It’s going to take us a little while to get there. How urgent is this?”

“It might be too late already.” Suvi can hear herself saying it, but she can’t understand that this is happening. That this can be allowed to happen. 

“It won’t be,” Kallo isn’t calm, she knows him too well to be fooled by the front he’s putting up, but he’s trying very hard. “We’ll be off in a minute, and we _will_ find her. Have you alerted Ditaeon?”

“Oh. No.” She’s so stupid. The settlement is much closer by. 

“They’ll only have ground vehicles equipped for combat, however… Suvi, Ryder just came onboard, we’re about to take off. Sit tight.”

They won’t make it. The realization comes to her clear as the sky over Prodromos at noon. The Tempest is too far away. At Ditaeon the ground vehicles are too slow. The only one with a shuttle close enough is Suvi. 

She’s never been in a fight, can barely aim her gun. If she does this, she could die. 

If she doesn’t, she couldn’t live with herself. 

“I’m going, too.”

“What? That’s-”

She drops the call, grabs the plasma gun, and runs, she _runs_ , to the shuttle.

\--

Suvi prays.

It doesn’t happen often, she hasn't really done it since she was very young. Her God is an eternal act of kindness cupping the world in loving hands, they are shelter when one is bereft and comfort when one is alone. They are the weaver of divine patterns, they are the numbers in a holy math, they are the forces that connect the disparate pieces of this wondrous universe, that set the planets on their course and ignited the stars.

Hers is not a praying god, but in the shuttle as she races over the rocky landscape of Kadara, Suvi prays anyway.

She isn’t sure how long it takes to round the three mountains between the research station and the valley where she hopes Vetra is, where she hopes Vetra is still alive. Suvi looks at the time continuously in between making sure she doesn’t crash into the rock and glaring at the speedometer, trying to will the shuttle to go over its limit, but she doesn’t remember from one second to the next what the little glowing numbers on the dashboard showed. It feels like years. Like her whole life has been spent here, in this limbo between happiness and tragedy.

At last, Suvi flies over the last hillside and enters the valley. She activates the stealth field, heads for the caves without slowing her speed. The entrance is on the southern side, the same direction she’s coming from. There - she can see it, the dark opening into the reddish mountainside.

No signs of life from the outside. Have Vetra’s assailants given up and left? If they’re all ensconced further inside, what is Suvi going to do, rush inside, one frightened woman with a handgun against who knows how many grizzled outlaws?

She hovers in the shuttle a small distance away from the cave while she tries Vetra’s comm again. Nothing. There are around forty frantic messages and missed calls from Kallo, but she can’t look at them in case she loses her nerve.

Panic is scratching around inside her chest. What if she guessed wrong? What if Vetra isn’t here? What if she’s bleeding out right now, just one mountain over, and Suvi won’t know before it’s too late?

A gunshot echoes through the valley.

Suvi’s heart stops. There’s another shot, yet another one. Her heart kickstarts, hammers hard enough to shatter her ribs. The sounds came from the east, and she throws herself at the shuttle controls, turns it around so fast, at such a sharp angle, it almost flips over. She speeds past an outcrop, finds herself in a little sheltered cranny between the rock formations that rise all the way around the foot of the mountain, and there.

People. People with guns, and armor, and two shuttles parked in front of a smaller cave opening in the copper red rock wall in front of them.

Suvi has only just taken in the scene, coming at full speed as she is, when another gunshot rings out, this time from inside the little cave, because the people outside duck behind the shuttles.

Vetra. _Vetra!_

That’s when Suvi’s stealth field discharges in an electric flash.

The people with guns turn around. There are about seven of them, all krogan. Two of them point their guns at Suvi’s shuttle and make a motion for her to step outside.

She does. Legs shaking, arms in the air, still holding her pistol, uselessly. Suvi stands on the dusty ground, spires of rock towering all around, and any second now she’s going to pee her pants. One of the outlaws laughs.

And Suvi isn’t scared anymore, she’s furious. How dare they. How dare they stand and laugh while they tear her life to pieces, while they burn and pillage their way through the future she had just begun to build for herself, a future filled with love and safety in a newly blossoming world, a future she couldn’t wait to start living. She had won the woman of her dreams. They were going to build a life together. Suvi was going to grow old, she was going to publish her work, raise kids, tell Vetra every day how much she loved her, spend every second knowing she was loved in return, but now Vetra is going to die and Suvi is, too, and the last thing she’ll see won’t be Vetra’s beautiful face but these grinning dirtbags and these stupid red rocks-

Red. The copper red rocks blocking Vetra's signal.

The nyxerium.

Suvi laughs. A shrilly nervous giggle that slips past her lips uncontrollably as she lowers her arm and fires her plasma gun at the rocks nearest to the outlaw shuttles.

The explosion is small, too small to do damage in itself. One plasma shot won’t do enough to set off a chain reaction, but the rock cracks, the spire topples and falls over the shuttles in an avalanche of fractured stone, and Suvi has time to feel a brief, giddy burst of victory before there’s a sharp pain in her head and the world goes black. 

\--

Once, when Suvi ate that berry on Havarl and spent a week in bed with a fever and stomach cramps, Vetra took shore leave to nurse her back to health in the Nexus apartment assigned to her and Sid. Suvi had been in pain but not in danger, and Lexi had reluctantly agreed to let her off the Tempest on the condition Vetra get in touch twice daily with updates.

It had been a long, slow week in bed, watching vid after vid from the Nexus library, Vetra rubbing her belly with her palm in soothing motions when the cramps hit. She had fed Suvi bottled juice and untoasted bread, and told her stories from her past in the Milky Way about jobs going hilariously wrong in benign ways, the subtones of her voice vibrating pleasantly through her chest.

Suvi had thought then, when the cramps receded and she was lying there dozy and content with the taste of mango-tangerine juice still sweet in her mouth and Vetra’s arms around her that this, this feeling, must be what going to heaven is like. To pass from pain to comfort and know that you’re wanted, you’re loved, in this space created just for you to be at peace.

This is why, when Suvi awakes in a soft bed with Vetra’s hand stroking her forehead and her body a little fuzzy and numb, like there’s cotton under her skin, she isn’t at all sure she’s still alive.

She blinks, opens her dry mouth and asks: “Is this real?”

Vetra gasps softly and leans in over the bed so Suvi can see her. “Yeah, babe. It’s real all right.”

Her face, smiling and blessedly alive, is the most beautiful thing in all the known and theorized universes. 

“Oh. Good,” Suvi says. “I feel strange, though.”

“I bet. You got hit pretty hard.”

“What… Where?” 

She’s in the Tempest medbay, Suvi realizes, tucked into one of the beds under some blankets that must have been brought special. She tries to sit up, but her head throbs and a wave of nausea washes over her.

“No, no, no. Don’t.” Vetra pushes her gently back down. “You’re not to move around for at least another full day. Lexi’s orders. Let’s not bring down her disappointment.”

“What happened?”

“You got hit by debris from your explosion. Just a concussion, thank the spirits. Lucky thing you were relatively far away. Lexi’s done all the scans, and there’s no bleeding or swelling. Just rest and you’ll be fine.” Vetra’s words are calm, but the twitch in her mandibles betray her emotion. “Do you remember anything?”

“I’m not sure.” Vetra was in danger. Something with the comms. She can’t put the pieces together, and when she tries her head hurts.

“Okay,” Vetra says, “here’s what happened.” She takes Suvi’s hand in hers, laces their fingers together. “That deal I told you about before? My regular guys didn’t show. Instead, this gang turned up, a bunch of lowlives who’d gotten themselves thrown out of the krogan settlement on Elaaden. My contact sold me out, took their credits in exchange for my ship, my goods and me. Thought they could get a hefty sum holding me for ransom from the famous Pathfinder. Of course, they had to take me first.” She smiles, wryly. “Turns out that was a lot more work than they planned for.”

“You didn’t call for two days,” Suvi says. She remembers that, remembers first not worrying, and then…

Vetra nods. “I didn’t want anyone to trace the comm to you, all alone out there. Once I got to the meeting place and figured out what was going on, I was too busy staying alive to do it. Never been up against seven krogan before. I’d like to say I stood at least an inch of my ground, but honestly? I was mostly running away.”

“And you didn’t call the Tempest, because-”

“Nyxerium blocked the comm, yeah. There was enough even to block the one you gave me at first. I got lucky, once I went and hid in that cave. There was this one spot…. I found a signal eventually, with some fiddling.”

“I took out one of them right at the beginning,” Vetra continues, “and that really pissed them off. They were still trying to take me alive, but they definitively weren’t going to quit. Sunk cost fallacy, I think. The cave was a good spot, I could hold them off from inside. At least a while. And only because they wanted me alive and didn’t just charge me full on.” 

“You called me.” Suvi remembers now. The fear, the desperation. “From the cave. Didn’t you? You said-” Unfathomable things about an unacceptable future.

Vetra’s mandibles flange. “I thought that was it,” she says quietly. “I wanted to say goodbye, since I could.” She shakes her head again, in disbelief this time. “But you took that call, figured out where I was and just…went.

“I didn’t know what had happened at first. I heard the explosion and thought, ‘damn, now they’re collapsing the cave, this is it.’ But the rockfall was outside. When I peeked out, the krogan were down and the Tempest had arrived. Drack and Cora got me out and took care of the krogan while Ryder and Peebee carried you onboard. That was five hours ago. You’ve been out cold since.” Vetra squeezes Suvi’s hand. “Kallo is beside himself.”

Suvi remembers. The outlaws, the cave, praying and hoping, being so scared and then just so angry, taking the shot.

All of that, only to get hit by a rock and pass out while the true rescuers saved the day. Not that she wishes they hadn’t, she just feels so foolish. Vetra has barely a scratch. Suvi could have gotten killed, or killed them all together when the entire mountain exploded, had she fired and hit with more than just the one shot.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I know it was a stupid risk to take for something that didn’t help, in the end. I was- I _was_ stupid. You’re going to tell me I rushed off and went in over my head, and you will be right. I’m sorry.”

Vetra is silent for a little bit. Her mandibles flutter.

“Suvi,” she says, after nearly a minute has passed. “The Tempest wouldn’t have found us if you hadn’t set off that explosion. They were heading for the other side of the mountain when Kallo caught it on the scanner. They’d have passed right by.”

“....Oh.”

“No one would’ve known to come in the first place if it wasn’t for your comm, Suvi, I… I’d never see Sid again. You don’t know how I…

“You came for me.” Vetra looks at Suvi, and there is something raw, something pained and astonished and full of terrified want in her eyes. “Someone came. For _me_. I’ve been a lot of different things to a lot of different people, but I’ve never been someone worth saving before. Even when it was risky and there wasn’t any profit- You came for me.” She lifts Suvi’s hand to her mouth, and against the back of it she whispers: “Thank you.”

The tears that have been brimming in Suvi’s eyes spill over, run down her temples to soak into the pillow.

“Vetra,” she sniffles. “Vetra, I love you. I love you so much.”

Vetra smiles, brushes away a tear with a finger. “I love you, too.”

“I can’t sit up, will you please bend down and kiss me?”

“Sure thing.”

For a tense, grotesque hour Suvi thought she wouldn’t ever get to kiss Vetra again, but here they are. Their fingers intertwined, their bodies close, Vetra’s tongue meeting hers. They kiss, and if Suvi had ever doubted the existence of something divine in the universe, this kiss would convince her.

Vetra lingers with her forehead against Suvi’s after they break the kiss.

“My big, strong human,” she says. “Happy anniversary.”

“Oh, no. I forgot.”

“You’ve had other things on your mind.”

“Still...”

“So. What do you want to do for our belated celebration? Once you’re out of this bed?”

“Get into another bed with you.”

Vetra laughs, warm and there and alive. “Really?”

Suvi’s head is aching, her body is numb, but she looks at Vetra, into her sweetly fond eyes, and she’s absolutely, perfectly happy. 

“Yes,” she says. “This is real.”


End file.
